This is just a quick note to all that I know many people have circled me on Google+ recently, many more than normal as of late (not that I am complaining). I haven't had a chance to keep on top of all the new additions, though I normally do try.

This past weekend I have seen the number of people circling me increase by five times I would say. I'm not sure why there has been such an influx lately. Especially since I haven't been on as much as I normally am in the last week or two.

Today marks 45 years since the very first episode of Star Trek aired. It was September 8, 1966 when NBC aired 'The Man Trap' to an unsuspecting audience. It is not the "birthday" of Star Trek... die-hard fans ('Trekkers') know that the series had two pilot episodes commissioned. The first pilot, 'The Cage' dates back to 1964, and the follow-up pilot, 'Where No Man Has Gone Before,' to 1965. The first episode to air was not meant to go out first, but the suits at NBC wanted an episode with a "monster" in it (they felt it had to compete with Lost in Space at the time), 'The Man Trap' had a monster and therefore it was selected to air first.

This anniversary is bittersweet for me. It comes just a couple weeks after loosing a long time friend who had been a great Star Trek fan. It was an unexpected loss and therefore I have to say even now, I am still in shock and disbelief about it.

Due to the oncoming storm that is Hurricane Irene which is predicted hit here on Sunday. Not knowing if we will have power, let alone internet, it may be best to postpone our two scheduled live review shows for that day. Doctor Who: Podshock and Hitchhiker's Guide to British Sci-Fi were both originally scheduled for a live-over-the-net review (of Doctor Who and Torchwood: Miracle Day respectively) on Sunday will be postponed to the following Sunday (4 September 2011) when we will double up and review two episodes of each series on each respective show to catch up.

The infographic below is from Followgram. It depicts some "fun facts" about Instagram. According to the note on the bottom of the infographic, Techcrunch and the Instagram blog is the source of the data in the graphic.

Having been on Instagram from just a week after they launched, I have seen how they have grown and matured as a social network. Most recently they announced that they have passed 7 million in users. It was only in June when they had hit 5 million. I remember each of these milestones as Instagram hit them. This infographic illustrates them as well other interesting facts.

Fire Island Lighthouse at Dusk. I have been posting photographs mostly to Flickr and not so much here. Of those these days, it's been mostly iPhone photos that I have been sharing via Instagram. This is a DSLR photo taken a couple summers ago (2009). I've been meaning to get back there again to photograph it again. Those horizontal lines are contrails formed by planes.

It was more than five weeks ago that I first entered the new Google+ social networking platform as a "field beta tester." It certainly is hard to believe it has been that long already. This coming Monday or Tuesday will be six weeks since the initial beta launch of the service, but I guess as the old saying goes, "time flies when you're having fun."